


A Correctly-Named Affliction

by clickingkeyboards



Category: Murder Most Unladylike Series - Robin Stevens
Genre: Awkwardness, Best Friends, Gen, Sick Fic, Sort Of, The Curse, projecting 101
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-08
Updated: 2020-09-08
Packaged: 2021-03-06 21:20:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,209
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26365600
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/clickingkeyboards/pseuds/clickingkeyboards
Summary: “I haven’t had the curse before, Hazel, I lied. I didn’t want to get teased for not having it so I told a lie, alright? I’ve never had it before, and it’s utterly horrible.”When Daisy is suspiciously absent from breakfast, Hazel rushes up to their dorm to find Daisy flustered over something that she never thought she would have to explain.
Relationships: Daisy Wells & Hazel Wong
Kudos: 20





	A Correctly-Named Affliction

“Somebody go and get Daisy,” Lavinia grumbled through a mouthful of Marmite on toast.

“Why isn’t Daisy here?” asked Amina from next to me, brushing her long hair back over her shoulder. “She’s usually up as early as anything.”

Shouting up the table, Kitty brandished her spoon in our direction. “She was taking too long in the bathroom so we just left. Probably spending too long fussing over her appearance.”

Kitty is the only person other than me who can get away with making jabs at Daisy, simply because Daisy has given up on stopping her.

Glittering even in confusion, Amina frowned and said, “Why on earth would Daisy need to  _ fuss _ ? She’s as pretty as Katharine Hepburn, and goodness knows that she doesn’t care a jot about impressing anybody.”

I pretended to be rather interested in the clock on the wall and tried not to stare at Amina. “I’ll go and fetch Daisy,” I said thickly. 

* * *

As I took the stairs back up to our dorm, I was secretly rather worried. Beanie had guessed that Daisy might be poorly, and after the heart-stopping debacle of Daisy’s sickness in May, I didn’t like that idea at all. I especially didn’t like the idea of Daisy being sick  _ at Deepdean _ , not with her delirious muttering; she would never forgive herself if she blurted out her crush in a fever haze. I was rushing when I got to the top, and I threw open the door with Daisy-ish dramatic force.

“Daisy?” I called into our dorm, rather out of breath. 

“Watson?” came Daisy’s voice from the bathroom. She sounded rather worried, which was unusual.

“Are you all right?”

There was a heavy pause and then Daisy said, “I was, well, trying to make myself look pretty. Prettier than I already am, obviously.”

I didn’t add what I wanted to.  _ For Amina. _

In a rush, she spoke much faster as she explained. “Then— well, Watson, something rather astonishing has happened. I have  _ the curse _ .”

I was confused. Daisy has had the curse for years, and we all knew it. When we were Second Formers, after an awkward science lesson from Miss Bell about exactly what the curse was, there had been a mad rush of girls all excited to be the first to get it and tell everybody exactly how awful and painful it was. Clementine especially wanted it to be her, so she could spread horror stories and terrify the First Formers, so nobody was more disgruntled than her when Daisy flounced prettily out of the bathroom one morning and announced that she had the curse.

“Daisy, you’ve had it for years,” I said, feeling oddly blushy. The curse is just something that is never spoken about, not even between Daisy and I. It is just an uncomfortable truth that we both quietly deal with.

“ _ I haven’t _ ,” she said thickly, and it sounded as if she was speaking through treacle. “I haven’t had the curse before, Hazel, I lied. I didn’t want to get teased for not having it so I told a lie, alright? I’ve never had it before, and it’s utterly horrible. I think I might be sick; I’ve never felt so nauseous, and everything hurts. It feels as if somebody has stabbed a hot poker into me through the bottom of my back.”

This did not sound at all like a normal thing that the curse does. It sounded remarkably like Daisy was dying. “Oh— Daisy, I don’t know what to do! I don’t get it bad!”

“I don’t have any of the… the  _ things _ that you need.” She sounded like she would rather be talking about anything else. I sympathised. “I don’t even know  _ what  _ you need. Oh, Hazel, this is horrid! I can’t even think properly, it’s like I’m thinking through that thick London fog.”

I had never heard Daisy so serious, not since our last dreadfully grown-up conversation in Saltings about how much I like Alexander, and the only time I had ever heard her more panicked is when she told me about her fancy for Martita when we were at the Rue. “You’ll be all right, Daisy! I’ll, um, I’ll get you some things from my drawers and I’ll tell you what to do, okay?”

Daisy sounded quite sick and faint when she replied. “Alright.”

* * *

The thing about the curse is that it seems to get every one of us in a different way. I once tried to explain it to Alexander and almost died of embarrassment. Beanie becomes quite tearful over almost everything for a week but doesn’t seem to suffer from pain at all. Kitty is dreadfully dramatic for a day or two before bouncing back to normal as if nothing was wrong. Lavinia complains in a grouchy voice and snaps at us over everything, and it feels very much like waving a red rag at a bull. I insist to Daisy that I don’t get emotional. She insists that I do (and she is right).

I have never met somebody who is in as much pain as Daisy.

After I told her what she’s supposed to do, through much stuttering and blushing, Daisy told me, “I’m done, Watson, but I’m not quite sure that I can move.” I told her to undo the bolt on the door and, when she did, she was astonishingly pale and rather wobbly. 

“Daisy, are you okay?” I gasped, reaching out my hands towards her, terrified that she would just keel over in a dead faint.

“Perfectly, Watson,” she mumbled, and then she went from pale with flushed cheeks to a very worrying white, and pitched forward into my arms.

Just as I was getting ready to scream, Daisy’s eyelids fluttered and she said, “Goodness. Is the curse supposed to make you faint like that?”

“I think,” I managed, “that you fainted from the pain and not the… you know,  _ bleeding _ .”

“That makes sense,” she replied, sounding much like she usually does. This was cut off sharply by her hissing in pain and crossing an arm across her stomach. “Good  _ grief _ , this is really quite horrifying. How do you put up with this?”

“It’s not… that bad for me.”

Deciding that I did not want to talk about it anymore, I insisted upon taking Daisy to the San. Despite how terribly she takes being ill, she didn’t protest.

* * *

Nurse Minn took one took at Daisy, rather ghostly and not quite on her own two feet, and pointed me towards a bed. While Daisy fell back on the bed with a huff, so different to when she had prettily pretended to have the curse before, I went and made up a hot water bottle. When I brought it back to her, she snatched it from my hands without a thank you and lay back against the pillows, sighing. “Hazel, this is simply awful,” she complained. “It is so unfair that not everybody has it the same! It’s as if I’m cursed!”

Daisy realised her accidental joke just as I did, and we made eye contact and she sparkled at me. Then we burst out laughing in unison, and I never thought that I would never be laughing at something to do with the wretched and terrible curse. 


End file.
